Recycling Partners Incorporated of Mobile, Ala. is conducting market studies for the construction of 40 to 70 MSW recycling plants for the United States and international markets such as Europe and Asia. These new plants will have the technology and potential to recycle up to 98% of the incoming waste providing a viable alternative to landfills. Each plant could process an average of 200 to 2,000 tons per day of MSW, depending on the size of the communities and demand. Construction costs could range from $5 million for the smaller plants to $20 million for the larger scale plants...Read More »

Nonhazardous waste collection company Casella Waste Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CWST) has sold its Multitrade energy operations, generating net proceeds to the company of about $5.7 million. The Rutland, Vermont-based company, which handles waste for over half a million commercial, industrial and municipal customers, said proceeds would be used to pay down debt. Casella has recently been selling non-core operations in order to focus on its solid waste business. The sale of Multitrade means the company has now netted about $100 million from its divestment program, against projected proceeds of $90 million...Read More »

The efforts of Maryland residents to produce less waste and reuse materials have made a significant contribution to recycling efforts already in wide practice, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. Maryland's 2000 recycling rate rose to 37.75 percent, up from 36 percent in 1999. The state has set a voluntary statewide waste diversion goal of 40 percent by 2005, consisting of a 35 percent recycling goal and up to a 5 percent credit for source reduction activities...Read More »

One of Wake County, N.C.'s largest governmental concerns, what to do with its waste, has eased considerably over the past few months as officials have realized that the county's landfill will not fill up for at least four years thanks to increased diversion efforts. The North Wake landfill in Raleigh was expected to close in 2003. At that time, the South Wake landfill at a site in Holly Springs was supposed to take its place. But the county's permit to build South Wake is tangled up in court as the town of 9,200 struggles against the plan...Read More »

University of Kentucky researchers have created a device that could someday eliminate the 1.5 billion tons of gray waste from coal-fired power plants every year in the United States. Scientists with UK's Center for Applied Energy Research hope their new technology will turn the contaminated material, a mixture of water and leftover coal ash from a power plant's furnaces and flues, into fuel for more electricity, and products such as cinder blocks and roadbed material...Read More »

The amount of waste hauled to Wisconsin landfills from other states reached another record high last year--more than 1.4 million tons--with waste from Minnesota continuing to rise, according to state figures. But compared with previous annual increases, the total number of tons of out-of-state waste coming to Wisconsin last year rose by a relatively modest amount over 1999's previous record. Last year, 1,453,501 tons of garbage from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan were dumped in Wisconsin landfills, making up about 15 percent of the state's total. Wisconsin ranks sixth in the nation in imported waste...Read More »

A comprehensive federal review of Ohio's pollution control programs has concluded that the Ohio EPA effectively enforces environmental regulations and has one of the country's best criminal environmental enforcement programs. The report by U.S. EPA also dismisses charges by some environmental groups regarding Ohio's Voluntary Action Program for brownfield cleanup and the state's audit privilege law, which encourages companies to report their own environmental violations. Similar reviews are being conducted in other states, but Ohio's program is the first to undergo an audit of this broad scope...Read More »

A consultant has recommended that Las Vegas, Nev. recycling companies be given greater opportunity to compete with garbage hauler Republic Services of Southern Nevada for commercial business. That recommendation from Zia Engineering & Environmental Consultants Inc. of Las Cruces, N.M., will be considered as part of a strategy to help Clark County recycle at least 25 percent of its residential and commercial waste by 2005. Republic Services holds exclusive franchise agreements in the Las Vegas Valley to collect residential and commercial waste. The county's recycling rate for municipal solid waste, 10.9 percent last year, was one of the lowest in the nation for a metropolitan area...Read More »

A proposed initiative to stop out-of-county waste from being imported into Orange County, Calif. has been filed by several haulers in the area. The measure would prohibit the disposal of solid wastes from outside the county at county landfills in Brea, Irvine and San Juan Capistrano. After Orange County declared bankruptcy in December 1994, supervisors voted to allow out-of-county trash at three county-owned landfills. Since importation began in 1995, about $90 million in dumping fees has been paid by other counties' trash haulers. County supervisors said that income is a significant part of the $11 million the county pays each year for the bankruptcy debt...Read More »